@humphrey

The worry is that Israel would back out of a truce if the ICC proceeds with the warrants, according to two of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

The only meaningful reason why Netanyahu and his subordinates would agree to a truce in the first place is that they don't have sufficient force just yet to wipe out Hamas. Netanyahu has made it clear that this is a fight to the death. Will the ICC ignore the US?

springs into action.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-fears-icc-issue-arrest-warrant...

TEL AVIV — Israel is greatly concerned that the International Criminal Court may issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and senior military officials as early as this week, an Israeli official told NBC News.

Israel is working through diplomatic channels to try to stop the warrants being issued, the official said Monday.

When asked about media reports of the arrest warrants, the ICC told NBC News that it “has an ongoing independent investigation in relation to the Situation in the State of Palestine" and that "we have no further comment to make at this stage."

The court launched an investigation thre

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/us-warns-icc-action-on-israel-would-hurt-cea...

US Warns ICC Action on Israel Would Hurt Cease-Fire Chances

(Bloomberg) -- The US and its allies are concerned that the International Criminal Court may issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials just as the country is getting closer to a cease-fire agreement with Hamas, potentially jeopardizing a deal, people familiar with the matter said.

The worry is that Israel would back out of a truce if the ICC proceeds with the warrants, according to two of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. Group of Seven nations have begun a quiet diplomatic effort to convey that message to the Hague-based court, the people said.

The ICC is weighing arrest warrants targeting both senior Israeli officials as well as the leadership of Hamas over the two sides’ conduct of the war in Gaza, the people said. The New York Times previously reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be among those targeted.

The US opposes the investigation and argues that the ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction in this situation, according to US officials. Two of the people said that the gap between Israel and Hamas an agreement to release hostages had narrowed in recent weeks and that a deal was now close. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the US and European Union.

@Cassiodorus Biden’s campus crackdown: The Democratic Party bares its fangs, again

It is therefore a matter of pressing urgency for youth protesting the genocide to draw the necessary political conclusions and break once and for all with the Democratic Party and those political forces grouped around it.

Caitlin Johnstone suggests a different reality:

Opposing The Gaza Genocide While Supporting Biden Is A Dishonest, Nonsensical Position

@soryang
-
delicate intimacies
thanks for sharing soryang!

...carried out a "terrorist" attack in Shanghai. Simone Chun's link on twitter got me started on this, among other things.

오늘 이런 일이 있었군요. 존경합니다. 그리고 감사합니다. pic.twitter.com/SJlUoTACdb

— 구르카 (@jnjfilm) April 29, 2024

Yun Bong-gil

On 29 April 1932, Yun took a bomb disguised as a water bottle to a celebration arranged by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) in honor of Emperor Hirohito's birthday at Hongkou Park, Shanghai. The bomb killed the government minister for Japanese residents in Shanghai, Kawabata Teiji [ja], and mortally wounded General Yoshinori Shirakawa, who died of his injuries on 26 May 1932.[7][unreliable source?] Among the seriously injured were Lieutenant General Kenkichi Ueda, the commander of the 9th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army, and Mamoru Shigemitsu, Japanese Envoy in Shanghai, who each lost a leg, and IJN Admiral Kichisaburō Nomura who lost an eye. The Japanese Consul-General in Shanghai, Kuramatsu Murai (村井倉松), was seriously injured in the head and body.[

Interesting Wikipedia write up. He was captured by the Japanese and executed. I didn't know his pen name- Mae Heon 매헌 (hangeul) 梅軒 (hanja). Early in life Yun rejected the forced study of Japanese in Korean schools during the imperial Japanese colonization period. I was looking for what his pen name meant and after searching for a while, I concluded it means plum pavilion. I interpret it as a reference to the former Chosun Dynasty (the Lee 李 Dynasty, Lee means plum) eliminated by the Japanese, and also the famous Pavilion in Pagoda Park from which Korean Independence was declared on March 1, 1919.

This report is from Hankyoreh April 24, 2024. I saw some South Korean SBS youtube live feed last night, that had a continuous loop running of various US-ROK, US-ROK-Japan, joint air and naval operations including US carrier operations, in the nature of propaganda / PAO films. The videos appeared somewhat out of date (showing 3 US carriers in the western Pacific, two with the Japanese carrier Ise).

[Editorial] New weight of N. Korea’s nuclear threats makes dialogue all the more urgent

...Coming in response to a joint South Korea-US aerial infiltration exercise reminiscent of a “decapitation drill,” the exercise amounted to the North answering with an overt nuclear threat...

...On Tuesday, the Rodong Sinmun reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had “guided a combined tactical drill simulating a nuclear counterattack” with the participation of 600 mm super-large multiple rocket launcher sub-units.

North Korea formalized its nuclear doctrine in a document called “About the Nuclear Forces Policy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” in September 2022. That doctrine permits the use of nuclear weapons (1) when North Korea has been or is about to be attacked by a nuclear weapon or another weapon of mass destruction or (2) when the state leadership has been or is about to be attacked, whether by nuclear or non-nuclear weapons.

Linking those provisions to Monday’s drill, aerial infiltration exercises simulating the elimination of the North Korean leadership of the sort carried out by South Korean and American special forces on Thursday met the conditions for activating the “Volcano Alarm,” leading to the firing of North Korea’s “super-large multiple rocket launchers tipped with simulated nuclear warheads” within the framework of the “Nuclear Trigger” system.

I'm not all that familiar with the younger generation of South Korean singers. Younha is one of these. So thanks for posting that EL. Below is her song I Believe, which I have heard on the Kdrama Cinderella and the 4 Knights. It has an English translation.

President Yoon and opposition leader Lee met earlier today. I think Yoon got a bump out of it, but I don't think it will help his administration much. Don't think Yoon really shives a git about what the ordinary people want. It's just an act, which everyone will figure out soon enough. His administration is still pounding on MBC for reporting on his wife's suspected crimes.

Thanks for the OT Enhydra Lutris.

@usefewersyllables

Tyler keeps posting articles on how bad the Gaza protesters are from a pro Israel slant and he’s getting pushback from the comments.

Check out the first one on this.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mammas-dont-let-your-babies-grow-be-...

I have been seeing people more in favor of the protests than not. It’s quite surprising.

is the headline of this article linked on Zerohedge: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/we-live-age-full-spectrum-deception

When I started reading it, I was amazed- there were so many points brought up that I could actually agree with. Wonderful! That lasted almost until the third paragraph, where the inevitable right-wing absurdity popped up:

And now, rather suddenly, it (read: the gummint) aligns itself with a faction that seeks to exterminate the Jews. (....) It’s even hard to locate where the center used to be with the action so heavy on the far-out margins. You’re watching drag queens importune young children to shove all the Jews into the sea. And the kids are sitting next to their mommies. What happened to the mommies’ brains that permits them to think this spectacle is okay? How will the mommies ever get their minds right?

What happened to the right-winger brains to make *that* aberrant fantasy into what they believe represents a real and present existential danger? What sort of drugs are they taking? Talk about getting one's mind right....

Let's face it: the culture wars have driven a sizable fraction of the right wing completely insane. Many of the Zerohedge commenters are already some of the most antisemitic and racist people I've ever seen. I can't even imagine which faction that article is trying to pander to and/or inflame.

But the title of the article is absolutely true. And it is at least somewhat amusing to watch an author decry "deception", and then immediately participate in escalating the Two Minutes Hate du jour against the Other du jour with such glee and abandon.

Propaganda works. Truth truly is dead. With that being said, nuance clearly never had a chance. And this, in a nutshell, is why I no longer bother trying to talk to the local rightwingers.

Now, you'll have to excuse me while I go off and eat the Soros-provided Dunkin' Donuts at my local drag-queen indoctrinate-the-children storytime, right?

Faugh.